BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — The first vaccinations against the new coronavirus are beginning in Alabama as cases of the illness caused by the virus soar.
The Alabama Department of Public Health said three sites received vaccine shipments Monday, and Cullman Regional Medical Center said it planned to begin vaccinating workers Tuesday at a clinic that was set up for administering the shots.
“We hope to eventually provide vaccines to all members of our health care team. However, we are currently working to vaccinate those frontline team members that are at highest risk of exposure,” Dr. William Smith, the chief medical officer at the hospital in Cullman, said in a statement.
Additional shipments of vaccine will arrive statewide as the shots begin, with nearly 41,000 doses expected in all in the state’s initial round. The first vaccinations are reserved for health care workers who are most at risk because of their jobs; members of the general public will have to wait.
Almost 300,000 people in Alabama have contracted the virus, and COVID-19 has killed more than 4,100 people in Alabama. State health regulators said they have loosened licensing rules to allow more out-of-state doctors to work in the state, where intensive care beds are filling up and medical workers are among the ill.
The Alabama Department of Corrections, which has one of the nation’s highest rates of inmate deaths from COVID-19, said three more elderly inmates had died of the illness caused by the coronavirus. All three men had serious health problems before contracting the virus, the agency said in a statement.